Gravitational Lensing of Gravitational Wave for Generalized Navarro-Frenk-White Profile and Einasto Profile

Abstract

The density profiles of Dark matter (DM) halos carry imprints of the DM nature and may be constrained through the lensing effects on gravitational waves (GWs) arising from the halo gravitational potential. In this paper, we investigate GW lensing by two representative types of halo density profiles, i.e., the generalized Navarro-Frenk-White (gNFW) density profile and the Einasto density profile. Using the gravitational lensing equation, we first examine the parameter-space distribution and the imaging characteristics of both profiles under strong lensing, partitioning the parameter space into distinct regions according to the Morse index. We then conduct a detailed analysis of the modulus $\big|F\big|$ and phase $\mathrm{Arg}(F)$ of the amplification factor $F\big(w,y\big)$ at low frequency regime. Our results show that, for a fixed lens mass , increasing the gNFW slope $γ$ leads to a larger amplitude, more rapid oscillation, and more distinct wave-packet morphology in the multiple-image regime. Compared with the gNFW case, the Einasto case (with $α=0.16$, $y<0.6$, and the same $M_{200}$) produces a stronger lensing effect. Notably, the evolution of $F\big(w,y\big)$ with frequency for the Einasto profile differs from that of the gNFW case, making its behavior particularly distinctive.